My predecessor's predecessors.
This is my hostfamily's third year taking on Instituters, and the other night the two girls that stayed here that first year came over to visit. One of the girls I had already known from the Baptist Student Union at school, and she's now a teacher in Southeastern Asia, so it was really cool to see her and catch up on what she's doing a little bit. The other girl is now married (to a guy she met doing the Institute) and is due to have her first baby in the next two weeks. It was really cute to see my hostsiblings get all excited to see them and everything. My hostparents tease that all the Institute girls they've had have either become missionaries or gotten married right after, so those are Carrie and my two choices after this summer. Which should I choose, do you think?
It's also just kind of encouraging to look at the people that did the Institute and see where they are now. I know three or four that are overseas right now doing missions and a couple that are starting families, and it's just really neat to see how God is using them. For many of them, where they are now came directly out of what they did the summer they did the Institute. All of them describe the Institute as life-changing. Which, being in the middle of it, is understandable. It's a lot to take it, and it really pushes you out of your comfort zone (very deliberately), and so far that's been an amazing experience. I already know that I would encourage so many people to do this; I can't even describe what it's done for my faith and my daily living, and I haven't even been through half of it yet. So it's just cool to look at where I am now, and think of all the kids that were exactly where I am and now are doing really cool things for God. I want God to use me in amazing ways too . . . hopefully someday.
Street-evangelizing
I grew up in church, a pretty moderate church, as churches go, and the main method for witnessing that was stressed and encouraged was relational. So when our college pastor told us we were going to go street-evangelizing on UNC's campus the other day (something that was somewhat looked down upon in the church I grew up in), I was a little bit nervous. Though nothing had ever outright been said about it, I grew up getting the feeling that people that would just strike up conversations about God with strangers on the street were kind of weird and outdated, that that was not the preferred way to evangelize, that there were better ways. So I was a little bit wary, but I'd decided before this summer that I wasn't going to let myself get nervous or scared when I was pushed out of my comfort zone (like I knew I would be), but that I was going to throw myself into whatever they asked me to do (within reason, of course).
So our college pastor split us into three groups of two (one guy and one girl in each), gave us a small cooler of water bottles, and told us to go hand them out and talk to people about God. He gave us some tips and advice and sent us out. I was teamed up with a guy named Dan, who isn't technically a part of the Institute, but who's been doing some of our classes and such with us as he prepares to go overseas for a few years. It took Dan and me a little bit to find someone we could really talk to, since we didn't want to interrupt anyone that looked like they were busy or on their way to something, and we tried to go talk to people at the pool, but since neither of us are in summer classes (he's graduated), they wouldn't let us into the UNC pool area. So we had to walk around some to finally find some people to talk to.
The first person we talked to was this girl at the bus stop. We walked over and offered her a bottle of water and just started up a conversation, asking typical small talk kinds of questions: her name, if she's in class at Carolina, her year, her major, etc, just trying to sort of start up a relationship. We transitioned by asking her whether she went to church while she was at school, and at that point she started to look a little wary (as is often the case whenever you ask someone that) but said no. We were trying to get her to talk to us a little about what she believes, so she told us that she used to go to church with her parents, but that she didn't really hold with much of what they believed. She herself believed in a relationship more than a religion - but she didn't like to talk about it, she said. Shut down. We tried to keep a conversation going but she obviously didn't want to talk to us, and we didn't want to push it, so we just let it go and moved on.
We saw a guy in the main quad sort of half reading and half staring off into space, so we went over to him and struck up a conversation along the same line. We ended up talking to him for like a half-hour. It was really cool. He opened up to us a lot more than I expected him to. He told us about how he used to be hardcore Christian, but then he feel away from it, and since then he's been struggling with depression, was seeking help for that, and had just begun to try reading his Bible and praying some again. We talked about why he had stopped going to church and what was keeping him from going back. We talked about what he believed about God and some of the questions he had. We talked about what we believed and about what he believed and how and why that had changed and how he felt about that. We talked about faith and relationships. It was really cool, because it was really obvious, at least to us, that God had starting working in his heart before we ever came up to him, and I really hope and pray that the conversation we had with him encouraged him to continue to seek God more as the solution to his problems and to get back involved with the church, who would also encourage him and help him with that. You could tell that he was starting to seek, even if he wasn't really aware of it himself, and that was really cool.
The whole experience was kind of mind-opening to me, for several reasons, one being that I don't think I personally would ever open up to some random people that came up to me and started asking me about what I believe. I'm confident in my beliefs, and if someone asks me, I'll certainly tell them, but I don't know that I would open up and start telling them about the things I'd been struggling with recently and why. So it's crazy to me that this kid would open up the way he did and talk to us for like thirty minutes. Recently I've talked to or heard speak people that were either saved through such measures or who have used them in the past and had a lot of cool experiences where they were able to help someone meet with God and begin as a disciple of His. I don't think street-evangelism should be someone's main mode of witnessing, because I think that there are other ways that can be much more effective, but I think there's definitely a place for it and that if you pray it through and listen to God, He'll lead you to situations in which people are willing and even eager to talk and will really listen to and consider what you have to say. It's such a reminder of how sovereign He is, that He can take situations which may seem totally random or coincidental to us and use them in ways that prove that He was watching over things and taking care of them the whole time.
My conclusion: I think we underestimate the power of the Gospel and back down from a lot of situations in which a little more boldness could literally be the difference between life and death for people. While I don't think it is the most effective form of evangelism, I think going out every so often, asking God to lead me to someone that is seeking Him could be an amazing ministry.
In Bible study last night, we were talking about how much our viewpoint affects the way we say something and also the way it is received. So often when we witness, we start with sin, saying, "You are a sinner and you need to stop being corrupt and turn your life over to God" when instead we should be saying, "You are a beloved person, created by God to be an heir to His eternal kingdom; nothing else can compare with that! God is calling you to be in a relationship with Him, a relationship that will bring endless joy and purpose to your life. Why would you want anything else?" We focus on the fact that we need to be saved, forgetting that not only is there something to be saved from, but there's also something to be saved to: restoration to live as a loved and favored child of the most Holy Almighty God.
Something that my pastor quotes a lot (and forgive me, I can't remember who first said it, but I'll let you know when I find out): "You are more wicked and despicable to God than you ever thought you could be, AND you are more loved and accepted by God than you ever hoped you could be." At the same time. Yes, it's true that we are corrupt sinners that can do no good apart from God - but that's not the end of the story. God loves us each with an unconditional love that wants desperately for us to return to Him as beloved children and heirs, to share in the eternal inheritance with Him. He comes to us even when we are at our lowest and tells us that He knows we can't do anything to be any better - but we don't have to, because He already did it all. Since He knew we could never reach up to Him, He reached down to us, though He had no obligation to, since we had already rejected Him. Yet despite our rejection of Him, He continues to reach out to us and woo us back to Himself. How could we reject such love? Why would we want to?
28 June 2007
27 June 2007
My Peeps
My Host Family
My family is tons of fun! I've got all four of the kids playing Egyptian Ratscrew with me now. Asher, the ten-year-old, and I play all kinds of card games together all the time. We've also been working on shuffling. Hannah is the eight-year-old and you can tell she loves having some sisters around for once. Joshua, the six-year-old, is the most likely to come up and cuddle with you (although all three of the younger kids do that on a regular basis). Caleb is four and cute as all get out. He likes to call out "Hi, big sister!" to me, which is sooooo cute. They're all four fun to be around and hang out with, and I've been really enjoying them. My hostparents are really sweet too; always offering to help us out and just letting us be a part of their family. The whole family goes up to a lake house about an hour from here where they play in the water and ride their jetskis and stuff like that, and my hostparents are always inviting up not only myself and my "sister," but also all the other Instituters, so that's lots of fun too. I'm such a water person, and I didn't expect God to put me with a family that's the same way! It's cool. The older two kids are on swim team, so we all go to the pool all the time, too. It's fun times.
The Instituters
It's been really cool getting to know the other Instituters. Carrie and I get along really well (despite the fact that she's been sick since she got here), so it's been fun rooming with her, my "big sister." She's really sweet and bubbly and outgoing, which is good, because I have a tendency to be too withdrawn in group situations, and she helps pull me out of that.
I've been able to spend some time with Julie, because her hostfamily was out of town for a little while, so I'd spend the night with her so she wasn't by herself. She's been a real encouragement to me so far this summer; she's had some good advice on life in general. Talking with her is always encouraging.
Abby and I have been able to hang out some too, and I love getting to know her. She has such a mind for God and she's really good at analyzing what we've been learning and asking good questions about it. She’s a cool kid, and I’m glad we’re getting to know each other this summer.
Overall, I love the Summiteers! We've had some good times already, and I'm excited to see what awesome times we're going to have over the rest of the summer!
Long-awaited update
Well, apparently I'm really bad at updating this thing, so I'm going to make a few posts to sum up what's happened so far this summer and then hopefully for the rest of the summer I'll be able to update more regularly.
Classes
Classes have been amazing so far. The Summit brings in a new professor (usually from Southeastern) every two to three days, which is neat because then we get to hear from these really really smart people in their area of expertise. So far we've discussed . . .
-Organizing your life around the Gospel and your calling
-Doctrine of Creation
-Doctrine of Salvation
-Interpreting the Scriptures
-Early Church History
-The Reformation
-Doctrine of the Church
-Baptist origins and belief
-Gospel-driven finances
-Doctrine of Sin
-Doctrine of Judgment
-Worldview
-Doctrine of Jesus' Death
-Doctrine of the Resurrection
-Our response to the Gospel
-Colossians (and worldview)
It's been pretty intense, because it's a lot of information in a very short period of time, so your head is usually full of theology just swirling around in there. We've been encourage that because of that, we should take really good notes so that we'll be able to go back over them to help us process things later. There's been some really really interesting stuff though, and if you want to discuss any of it with me, I'd love to discuss it all! Discussing it all usually helps the whole processing process. So just let me know!
Internship
My internship is with the Kidzone, the children's ministry at the Summit, and it's been fun so far. Mostly I do intern-y kinds of things at the office, such as printing out all the curricula for Sundays and just helping keep things organized. However, my roomie and I have been given free reign on a project for the summer. Our project is to design from scratch a mentor/service ministry for kids (1st-5th grade) which gives them the opportunity to serve on Sunday morning. Our "bosses" are there to help us if we get stuck, but basically we were just told to run with it, and hopefully it will get implemented this fall! The point of the service ministry is basically to teach our kids several things: that service is an important part of our faith and something that we should all be involved in; that we need to be giving back to the church and the community, not just taking from them; that we should be actively sharing God's love with other people through service; that they don't need to wait until they're older to begin serving God. So Carrie and I are planning that all out, and hopefully we'll get it all worked out by the end of summer. It's kind of intimidating, but really thrilling too. We also want to incorporate into the program some of the cores of the Kidzone - daily personal time with God, prayer, Scripture memory - so we're working on ways to do that as well. I'm excited to see what our kids will do!
Sunday mornings are crazy madness when you work with the Kidzone. Every other week we have Set Up, so then we need to be at church at 6am to get everything set up and ready for the 8.00am service. Then we get to attend one service (for me the 8.00), then during the 9.30 service I work either with the 1's or the 2's, and during the 11 o'clock service I work with the Grace kids, which is the special needs class. Then the weeks that I don't have Set Up I have Tear Down. I'm usually at church around 7 hours, so it's tiring, but it's really cool, too. I love working with all the kids; the babies are so cute and the Grace kids are so sweet! Overall, it's fun times.
Classes
Classes have been amazing so far. The Summit brings in a new professor (usually from Southeastern) every two to three days, which is neat because then we get to hear from these really really smart people in their area of expertise. So far we've discussed . . .
-Organizing your life around the Gospel and your calling
-Doctrine of Creation
-Doctrine of Salvation
-Interpreting the Scriptures
-Early Church History
-The Reformation
-Doctrine of the Church
-Baptist origins and belief
-Gospel-driven finances
-Doctrine of Sin
-Doctrine of Judgment
-Worldview
-Doctrine of Jesus' Death
-Doctrine of the Resurrection
-Our response to the Gospel
-Colossians (and worldview)
It's been pretty intense, because it's a lot of information in a very short period of time, so your head is usually full of theology just swirling around in there. We've been encourage that because of that, we should take really good notes so that we'll be able to go back over them to help us process things later. There's been some really really interesting stuff though, and if you want to discuss any of it with me, I'd love to discuss it all! Discussing it all usually helps the whole processing process. So just let me know!
Internship
My internship is with the Kidzone, the children's ministry at the Summit, and it's been fun so far. Mostly I do intern-y kinds of things at the office, such as printing out all the curricula for Sundays and just helping keep things organized. However, my roomie and I have been given free reign on a project for the summer. Our project is to design from scratch a mentor/service ministry for kids (1st-5th grade) which gives them the opportunity to serve on Sunday morning. Our "bosses" are there to help us if we get stuck, but basically we were just told to run with it, and hopefully it will get implemented this fall! The point of the service ministry is basically to teach our kids several things: that service is an important part of our faith and something that we should all be involved in; that we need to be giving back to the church and the community, not just taking from them; that we should be actively sharing God's love with other people through service; that they don't need to wait until they're older to begin serving God. So Carrie and I are planning that all out, and hopefully we'll get it all worked out by the end of summer. It's kind of intimidating, but really thrilling too. We also want to incorporate into the program some of the cores of the Kidzone - daily personal time with God, prayer, Scripture memory - so we're working on ways to do that as well. I'm excited to see what our kids will do!
Sunday mornings are crazy madness when you work with the Kidzone. Every other week we have Set Up, so then we need to be at church at 6am to get everything set up and ready for the 8.00am service. Then we get to attend one service (for me the 8.00), then during the 9.30 service I work either with the 1's or the 2's, and during the 11 o'clock service I work with the Grace kids, which is the special needs class. Then the weeks that I don't have Set Up I have Tear Down. I'm usually at church around 7 hours, so it's tiring, but it's really cool, too. I love working with all the kids; the babies are so cute and the Grace kids are so sweet! Overall, it's fun times.
04 June 2007
Youngstown, OH
Well, hello there! Summer has officially gotten underway now, and I've already been busy as could be. The Institute started about a week and a half ago and so far I'm loving it!
The first two days we worked with Pregnancy Support Services on cleaning up a house for a woman that's about to have her third child and with Habitat for Humanity on building a house in downtown Durham. Both were good experiences and provided a chance for the six of us that are in the Institute to start getting to know each other.
On Saturday, the 26th, we left for Youngstown, OH, in a 12-passenger van. We got there around 7pm ish and went to a graduation party for one of the members of the church we were visiting. Then we had kind of a relaxed day on Sunday, since they meet for church Sunday nights. The church is called Youngstown Metro Church and is pastored by Josh Shank. I fell in love with that church and would love the opportunity to go back anytime. It's a pretty small church - I think they have around 100 members - and it's growing. It's a kind of alternative church: lots of piercings and tattoos, rock music for worship, etc. As soon as that church service started and people started worshiping, you could feel God's presence there, and you knew that this was a church of people that are sincerely worshiping and loving God. Over the week we were there, we got to know some of the more involved church members, and there are some really neat people there. They're focused and driven, seeking to live their lives to serve God and their community, wanting to reach people with His love. Living in a world where complacency is so often a problem among Christians and the church, it was really refreshing to spend time with people that were so focused and driven. It was really inspiring.
While we were there, we were mostly helping them do some work for an organization they've started called Social Action Republica. SAR is a non-profit social organization that was started by and is affiliated with the Metro Church, but with which Metro wants to involve other churches and organizations in the community so that they're all working together. SAR's two main focuses right now are the issues of thirst and human trafficking. This August, a group of 7 or 8 people from Metro are going to Liberia to actually build a well to provide clean water to an entire village there. Since building a well like this costs $5-10 thousand, SAR is putting on a race called 10 Miles to Cure Thirst. The premise of the race is that a woman has to walk an average of 10 miles every day to get water, water that is usually contaminated and largely contributes to the spread of waterborne diseases, which affect the majority of their population. The race is in July, so we were doing a lot of promo for it, making signs for it, that sort of thing. A lot of it involved just walking around to Youngstown businesses and asking them if they'd like to be a sponsor in the race. It's a really cool thing they're doing, and they want to make it an annual thing, so that every summer they're going and building at least one well (more if they can get teams from other churches and organizations involved).
Social Action Republica also focuses on human trafficking (700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world for forced prostitution, labor, and other forms of exploitation every year), an issue which is also very pertinent to the US, where it's the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the nation. Most of SAR's actions regarding human sex trafficking right now are spreading awareness. Less than 2% of law enforcement and medical personnel are trained to deal with sex trafficking and there are no major laws punishing it, so even when people are caught trafficking, they usually get away with just a slap on the wrist. SAR and Metro are focusing on spreading awareness so that we can hopefully put pressure to do something about this: train personnel to deal with it, make laws to punish it, find ways to rehabilitate and reassimilate the women and children into society. It's a really serious issue and one that I personally, even knowing as little as I know about it, already feel really passionate about.
What's really exciting about the whole thing is that the Summit Church may start a branch of Social Action Republica in Durham, participating in things like going to Liberia to build wells every summer and spreading awareness and finding ways to deal with human trafficking in the US. I've already talked to one of the pastors at the Summit about getting involved in the human trafficking issue, since it's something I feel strongly about, and I'm really excited about the possibility of working with that and hopefully being able to do something to help women and children get out of those hopeless situations and into places where we and others would be able to show them the love of Christ and hopefully turn their lives around and find them a decent way to live. The more I think about it, the more I want to do something about it. It breaks my heart to think about the hundreds of thousands of women and children that are forced into these situations all the time. We need to pray that God will raise up people to stop this, people that will take His love and His Word (and His justice) into these situations, that God will respond to our prayers and work through these situations to reveal Himself to people and to start to change it. This fall or spring, there's a movie coming out called "Trade" which deals with the issue of human trafficking, which both the Summit and the Metro are going to do a pre-screening of.
While in Youngstown, we were also looking around downtown for a new facility for the Metro, since the owners of the theater they're in now have started giving them a lot of trouble. We walked through downtown Y-town and looked for abandoned buildings that looked like they might be a good fit for the church and were hopefully for sale or lease so that the church could start going through them and looking for a building that would work. We found some good leads, so we're praying that at least one of them will work out, being of the right size and within the Metro's budget.
We met some really cool people while we were in Y-town. Josh and Aimee Shank are the couple that moved there to start the church; Josh is the pastor and Aimee runs most of the business side of it. They have a little girl, Ella, who's about a year and a half and the cutest little girl you ever met. We spent a lot of time with the three of them, and just being with them you could see the passion they had for God and the vision they had for His people in Youngstown. It was really cool. We also got to know a girl named Lauren, the college student that's planning and putting on the 10 Miles to Cure Thirst race. It's a lot of work and it was really neat to see how well she was doing everything, even though none of them had put on a race like this before and they really didn't know what they were doing. We also got to know a woman named Cece pretty well. She's also a main actor in the Metro and SAR, and she and I got to talk about human trafficking a bit, since it's something she's also passionate about. We're going to keep in touch with the whole thing, so I'm hoping I can learn a lot from her. She's a really neat person. There were several other people that we got to work with and got to know a little bit, and I miss them all already. The worship band that plays at Metro on Sunday nights just put out a CD, which features some original songs by their worship leader, Jesse David, and all of the proceeds of which go towards clean water in Africa. It's a really good CD, and you can buy it online (I'll give you the link at the end of the post).
Basically, I was in Youngstown for a week, visiting the Metro Church, and I fell in love with the church, the people, and the town. You could see God at work in those people and what they were doing, and I loved being a part of that. They offered for a few of us to maybe pray about coming up there next summer and interning with them, and it's something that I've been thinking about and praying about. I have very tentative plans for next summer already, so we'll what pans out, but I would love to be able to go there for a summer and be with them and learn from them. You could learn so much, not just about how to plant a church, but also about how to go into a city where God doesn't have a large presence or following and really reach people, go into their lives with the love of God and let Him change them, and through that start to change the entire city.
"We don't want to be relevent to culture - we want to lead it." ~Josh Shank, pastor, the Metro Church, Youngstown, OH.
Related links:
www.youngstownmetrochurch.com
www.socialactionrepublica.com
www.myspace.com/jessedavidworship
www.tradethemovie.com
The first two days we worked with Pregnancy Support Services on cleaning up a house for a woman that's about to have her third child and with Habitat for Humanity on building a house in downtown Durham. Both were good experiences and provided a chance for the six of us that are in the Institute to start getting to know each other.
On Saturday, the 26th, we left for Youngstown, OH, in a 12-passenger van. We got there around 7pm ish and went to a graduation party for one of the members of the church we were visiting. Then we had kind of a relaxed day on Sunday, since they meet for church Sunday nights. The church is called Youngstown Metro Church and is pastored by Josh Shank. I fell in love with that church and would love the opportunity to go back anytime. It's a pretty small church - I think they have around 100 members - and it's growing. It's a kind of alternative church: lots of piercings and tattoos, rock music for worship, etc. As soon as that church service started and people started worshiping, you could feel God's presence there, and you knew that this was a church of people that are sincerely worshiping and loving God. Over the week we were there, we got to know some of the more involved church members, and there are some really neat people there. They're focused and driven, seeking to live their lives to serve God and their community, wanting to reach people with His love. Living in a world where complacency is so often a problem among Christians and the church, it was really refreshing to spend time with people that were so focused and driven. It was really inspiring.
While we were there, we were mostly helping them do some work for an organization they've started called Social Action Republica. SAR is a non-profit social organization that was started by and is affiliated with the Metro Church, but with which Metro wants to involve other churches and organizations in the community so that they're all working together. SAR's two main focuses right now are the issues of thirst and human trafficking. This August, a group of 7 or 8 people from Metro are going to Liberia to actually build a well to provide clean water to an entire village there. Since building a well like this costs $5-10 thousand, SAR is putting on a race called 10 Miles to Cure Thirst. The premise of the race is that a woman has to walk an average of 10 miles every day to get water, water that is usually contaminated and largely contributes to the spread of waterborne diseases, which affect the majority of their population. The race is in July, so we were doing a lot of promo for it, making signs for it, that sort of thing. A lot of it involved just walking around to Youngstown businesses and asking them if they'd like to be a sponsor in the race. It's a really cool thing they're doing, and they want to make it an annual thing, so that every summer they're going and building at least one well (more if they can get teams from other churches and organizations involved).
Social Action Republica also focuses on human trafficking (700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world for forced prostitution, labor, and other forms of exploitation every year), an issue which is also very pertinent to the US, where it's the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the nation. Most of SAR's actions regarding human sex trafficking right now are spreading awareness. Less than 2% of law enforcement and medical personnel are trained to deal with sex trafficking and there are no major laws punishing it, so even when people are caught trafficking, they usually get away with just a slap on the wrist. SAR and Metro are focusing on spreading awareness so that we can hopefully put pressure to do something about this: train personnel to deal with it, make laws to punish it, find ways to rehabilitate and reassimilate the women and children into society. It's a really serious issue and one that I personally, even knowing as little as I know about it, already feel really passionate about.
What's really exciting about the whole thing is that the Summit Church may start a branch of Social Action Republica in Durham, participating in things like going to Liberia to build wells every summer and spreading awareness and finding ways to deal with human trafficking in the US. I've already talked to one of the pastors at the Summit about getting involved in the human trafficking issue, since it's something I feel strongly about, and I'm really excited about the possibility of working with that and hopefully being able to do something to help women and children get out of those hopeless situations and into places where we and others would be able to show them the love of Christ and hopefully turn their lives around and find them a decent way to live. The more I think about it, the more I want to do something about it. It breaks my heart to think about the hundreds of thousands of women and children that are forced into these situations all the time. We need to pray that God will raise up people to stop this, people that will take His love and His Word (and His justice) into these situations, that God will respond to our prayers and work through these situations to reveal Himself to people and to start to change it. This fall or spring, there's a movie coming out called "Trade" which deals with the issue of human trafficking, which both the Summit and the Metro are going to do a pre-screening of.
While in Youngstown, we were also looking around downtown for a new facility for the Metro, since the owners of the theater they're in now have started giving them a lot of trouble. We walked through downtown Y-town and looked for abandoned buildings that looked like they might be a good fit for the church and were hopefully for sale or lease so that the church could start going through them and looking for a building that would work. We found some good leads, so we're praying that at least one of them will work out, being of the right size and within the Metro's budget.
We met some really cool people while we were in Y-town. Josh and Aimee Shank are the couple that moved there to start the church; Josh is the pastor and Aimee runs most of the business side of it. They have a little girl, Ella, who's about a year and a half and the cutest little girl you ever met. We spent a lot of time with the three of them, and just being with them you could see the passion they had for God and the vision they had for His people in Youngstown. It was really cool. We also got to know a girl named Lauren, the college student that's planning and putting on the 10 Miles to Cure Thirst race. It's a lot of work and it was really neat to see how well she was doing everything, even though none of them had put on a race like this before and they really didn't know what they were doing. We also got to know a woman named Cece pretty well. She's also a main actor in the Metro and SAR, and she and I got to talk about human trafficking a bit, since it's something she's also passionate about. We're going to keep in touch with the whole thing, so I'm hoping I can learn a lot from her. She's a really neat person. There were several other people that we got to work with and got to know a little bit, and I miss them all already. The worship band that plays at Metro on Sunday nights just put out a CD, which features some original songs by their worship leader, Jesse David, and all of the proceeds of which go towards clean water in Africa. It's a really good CD, and you can buy it online (I'll give you the link at the end of the post).
Basically, I was in Youngstown for a week, visiting the Metro Church, and I fell in love with the church, the people, and the town. You could see God at work in those people and what they were doing, and I loved being a part of that. They offered for a few of us to maybe pray about coming up there next summer and interning with them, and it's something that I've been thinking about and praying about. I have very tentative plans for next summer already, so we'll what pans out, but I would love to be able to go there for a summer and be with them and learn from them. You could learn so much, not just about how to plant a church, but also about how to go into a city where God doesn't have a large presence or following and really reach people, go into their lives with the love of God and let Him change them, and through that start to change the entire city.
"We don't want to be relevent to culture - we want to lead it." ~Josh Shank, pastor, the Metro Church, Youngstown, OH.
Related links:
www.youngstownmetrochurch.com
www.socialactionrepublica.com
www.myspace.com/jessedavidworship
www.tradethemovie.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)